Nepali Night at Cameron celebrates Nepal New Year

By Robert King

     Cameron University Nepalese Association (CUNA) hosted the Nepali Night event at 5 p.m., April 17, in Cameron’s McCasland Foundation Ballroom at McMahon Centennial Complex.

     Nepali Night brought many Cameron students and faculty together to celebrate the Nepali New Year of 2073.

     CUNA members performed traditional Nepalese dances and music while wearing attire common in Nepalese culture. Members also served popular Nepalese dishes like an appetizer of chicken drumsticks, stir-fry gram peas with peanut salad and prawn chips.

     CUNA President and senior computer science major Pramod Poudel says the Nepali calendar is ahead of the Gregorian calendar because of history and religion.

     “It goes way back, in our country it is B.S. and your country is A.D,” he said. “All around the world, except our country, is at 2016. The AD time scale comes from Jesus.”

CUNA President Pramod Poudel (left) and Treasurer
Shashank Adhikari (right). Nepali Night celebrated 
Nepalese culture and thecoming of year 2073.

     In the Gregorian calendar BC and AD are based on Christ, where BC means ‘before Christ’ and AD is after birth. The Nepali calendar is not determined by events in Christian beliefs.

     The Nepali Patro is approximately 56 years and 8 and months ahead of the English Gregorian Calendar. In Nepal, the New Year starts approximately April 17. The length of a Nepali month varies each year. One month could last up to 32 days.

     Poudel hopes that 2073 is the year to overcome the tragedy of a recent earthquake in Nepal.

     “In 2072 we had a massive earthquake,” he said. “Too many people died. We are trying to overcome that in 2073. Our country will fight back, we will go recover this coming year, we hope.”

    CUNA welcomes anyone to attend the events and even join the organization if interested. Membership is not limited to Nepalese students.

     Treasurer and sophomore IT major Shashank Adhikari says that CUNA helps add to the diversity at Cameron.

     “At Cameron we have lots of international students,” he said. “We are one of the international clubs at Cameron and we collaborate with other clubs and do programs that will give other people a hint of our cultures.”

     CUNA recently became a five-star organization at Cameron. The group puts on two Nepali Nights a year to encourage students to participate in the celebrations of Nepalese culture.

    Adhikari says that one goal of CUNA is to help students from Nigeria adjust to life in the United States.

     “Whenever international students come here for the first time we help them get apartments,” he said. “We help them figure out what to do. When we came here, we just started here and we didn’t know what to do. We want to help them, show them how college works in the United States, because the education systems are different between these two countries.”

     On the CUNA Facebook page, admin Raju Bhusal thanks those who attended and helped make Nepali Night successful.

     “It is the teamwork and their collective efforts that made all the difference,” he wrote. “We will walk together in the days to come.”

     There will be a final meeting on April 23 for 2015-16 school year where they will elect new officers for the 2016-17 academic year. For more information see the CUNA Facebook page.

Marriage Process in Nepali

By Adepeju Adeniyi
                                                 

    In an arranged wedding as part of Nepali tradition, Shirinki Bista married Surana Aayamus on April 9, in Colorado Banquet Hall Houston Texas.

    An arranged marriage is a marriage organized by the families of the bride and groom.                          

The marriage started with opening prayer by priest Bisyam, who led the audience in a prayer song.

Amita  the wedding coordinator  introduced herself and then introduced the families of the two couples.

    Then, Priest Bisyam called on the couples to come forward for a blessing from both parents.

 Surana is from Tamangs tribe, and Shirinki is from Gurung tribe.

    Surana said her tribe lives mainly in the high hill of east, north south, and west of Kathmandu. Members of her tribe live in the Himalayan region of Nepal and India; their ancestral land is called Tamsalang. The buddist Tamang are the largest Tibeto Burman ethnic group within Nepal.

    Shrinki said his tribe lives in the middle mill and valley along the southern of the Annapura Hilmalaya. They  are the buddist  and large minority of Hindus. They adopt the Tibetan culture to a heavy which resulted in many Gurung gradually embracing Tibetan Buddism. Their music is indigenous Gurung community of Nepali. His  Tribe is very rich in its cultural heritage, and music play an important role in their lives

The couples receiving blessings from their parents.Nepali
 wedding between Surana Aayamus and Shrink Bista. 

      The process of the marriage  preparation are in different categories and it must be done step by step or else the priest will not bless the marriage.

Bibiah Chinne is the first step of pre wedding and this is the verbal consent from Surana’s father. Shrinki’s father and his relatives come to Surana’s house and discuss with Surana’s families to ask for their daughter hand in marriage. After this, Surana’s father gives a verbal consent  concerning the proposal .  After this is done, Surana’s father sends an invitation to Shirinki in order to meet him.

    The second process is invitation to Shirinki. This is done some days after the verbal consent from Surana’s father. Then Shirinki accepts the invitation and send some gift from his family care to Surana’s families especially to her. Gifts like jewelry, milks, sari cloths, sweet made from their traditional style and so much more.

    Purbanga ( at the grooms house) is the third process after Shirinki accepts the invitation. This is a ceremony done at the groom’s house, and it is performed a day before the wedding where the groom is taken to a prayer temple with some high priest in order to pray for the success of the marriage and to tell him to depart from all other women.

    The last process the  traditional wedding. This is when Surana and Shirinki become husband and wife.

    Mrs. Bista said they decided to do their wedding here in America because they are not ashamed of their culture and tradition. I am comfortable she said

     “most people don’t know the importance of their tradition, and this makes me feel bad, but I believe that one day they would wake up and realize that their tradition still needs to live in them no matter where they are.”

    Her families told her they won’t be present for her wedding because it is not in their home country, but she had to convince them to come over to America  . she said,

    “I wanted my families to be here in America with me, because that is one important thing in a wedding ceremony, but they said no. I had to convince them to come over and learn about other peoples culture and be more diverse in nature.”

    Mr. Bista said he was speechless when he saw the turn of audience of people from Nepali

   “I couldn’t believe what my eyes saw, because when we printed out the invitation, most people said they will not be present for my wedding, but am so happy because people I didn’t expect to see came down to America just for my wedding.”

    He discussed on the challenges he faced during the preparation, he said “I drained my account just because of my priceless wife. She deserves it.”

       There were different groups of cultural dancers and drama groups present at the wedding ceremony. 
Different kinds of foods were available like the Khas or Pahari food which is the standard meal they eat twice a day, Himalayan food which is made with buck wheat, and also Thakali which is eaten by Thakali people it is served with ( bhattis). It is also less vegetarians and all other different kinds of foods.

    Finally Mr. and Mrs. Bista gave an advice to other Nepali couples out there that everyone is to present their culture and never be ashamed of it.